Shelter of the Most High

by Connilyn Cossette

  Seno nudged me forward, his command barely a whisper. “Go. Now.”

  Thankful for our bare feet, I held my breath as we carefully navigated around a few men that lay across the deck, their chests rising and falling in steady rhythm.

  We reached the low railing that edged the boat, my skin tingling with nervous anticipation at the thought of diving into the black sea. I turned back to whisper thanks to Seno but something grabbed my ankle. Looking down in horror at the last man I’d stepped over, I saw that it was Porote, the grizzled older man who’d questioned Seno when we’d first climbed aboard.

  He released my ankle but sprang up and grabbed Prezi’s wrist, then pointed a dagger at my throat. “What’s going on here?”

  Seno came up behind Porote, his expression calculating and his eyes blank. “Looks as though these two are trying to escape.”

  Everything inside me went still. “I won’t lose my ship,” he’d said. Seno had turned on us.

  I yanked Prezi closer, shuffling until the backs of our knees struck the railing. “Please, just let us go.”

  Porote sneered. “I don’t think we will. Isn’t that right, Seno?”

  Seno’s gaze met mine, and in it was a brief glimpse of the regret I’d wondered whether he was even capable of anymore, along with a hint of the debt he felt he owed my mother. But then the boy who’d kissed me on a beach eight years before shook his head, turning back into the pirate who’d snatched us off that same beach. “No.”

  “What are you waiting for?” Porote said to Seno, even as his eyes remained locked on me, challenge clear in his tone. “These slaves need to be taught a lesson.”

  Without a word, Seno unknotted the leather belt that looped twice around his waist. Large metal beads were knotted into the tasseled ends, a tool for a man who ruled his ship with no mercy. With eyes devoid of any feeling, he doubled it in his fist, stepped forward, and raised the whip high.

  In one horrifying moment, he brought down the lash, and Prezi spun on me, a mixture of gut-wrenching apology and fierce determination in her expression as she slammed her palms into my chest and knocked me backward over the railing. Heels over head, I crashed into the surface of the sea, my arm stinging every place where those dangerous tassels had met my skin before Prezi took the brunt of the blow.

  The shock of cold water hitting my body made me suck in a wet gasp. I twisted until my head was above water, spitting and choking. Prezi still stood by the railing, outlined by moonlight and arms raised to protect herself from the whip Seno brought down on her again and again. My mouth filled with water as I screamed at him to stop, begging him for mercy. Once more he lifted the whip, but instead of lashing her again, his fist slammed into her face. She toppled over the railing, landing in the water with a splash.

  I screamed her name, my throat already tender from the salt water, and swam toward the place she’d gone under, my heart pounding. Had Seno killed my cousin? Calling her name again, I flailed around with hands numb from fear and cold. She would not drown. I refused to let her drown. When my fingers connected with floating tendrils of hair I gripped them tightly, yanking her toward me in desperation, regardless of the pain it might inflict.

  Ignoring the furious shouts coming from the deck of the ship where it seemed Porote and Seno were now locked in a battle of words and knives, I tugged her close, making sure her head was above the water. “Can you hear me?” I whispered. Although I could not see her in the darkness, she coughed and gasped. I thanked Posedao for not dragging her to the bottom of the sea. I did not wait for Prezi to catch her bearings, could not even wait to see if she was truly alive before I looped my arm around her chest and swam. A loud curse caused me to toss a wide-eyed glance over my shoulder just as Seno’s body crumpled over the side of the boat and slipped beneath the black surface, taking his regrets with him into the sea. Porote had won himself a ship.

  With no time to waste mourning my childhood friend, nor the man who’d spared our lives, I used my free arm to pull at the water and kicked with all my might, pushing against the black swells so intent on forcing us back toward the boat, and hoping that Porote counted us as lost or at least not worth the effort of lifting anchor to pursue us.

  “Swim,” I ordered Prezi, hoping she would hear the command through her half-conscious haze.

  Her hand gripped my arm suddenly and she coughed again. “Just let me go. Get yourself to shore.”

  “Never,” I vowed. “We will survive. Both of us.”

  She did not answer, but she did begin to kick her legs, and soon we were far enough away from the boat that it became only a dark silhouette against the night. Turning my face away from it, I peered in the direction I hoped was the shore and swam, doing my best not to guess what sea creatures might be lurking beneath us and how very far away the lights seemed to be.

  For what seemed like hours we swam, every so often pausing to float on our backs and rest, and then swam again. We pushed south, away from the torchlights and bonfires that winked along the coastline, away from the port where Seno’s men were headed and where others might spot us.

  Just as the sky began to lighten, we were caught in a current that pushed us toward land, moving us with astonishing speed toward the shore. Grateful for the assistance of the gods of the sea, I sent out a prayer of thanks, but just as quickly rescinded it. We were headed directly toward a barrier reef that jutted out of the water. The white crash of waves against the rock and the roar of the sea against the perilous outcropping made my empty stomach churn.

  “Swim!” I yelled, pushing Prezi away from me. “Go!” The first touches of dawn on her pale face revealed that her cheek was swollen and purpling. Seno had hit her on the side of her face, as if he’d aimed for her cheekbone instead of dead-on. I wondered if he’d done that on purpose.

  With the last bit of our strength, we attempted to cut across the current that dragged us closer and closer to the deadly rocks, but accomplished nothing but fatigue. Our bodies were sucked into a swirl of churning water and we both cried out, grabbing for each other as the sea thwarted us, ripping us apart. I was pushed one way and Prezi another, and then just before I reached her she was dashed against a large boulder and released a scream that chilled my already frozen blood.

  “My leg,” she cried.

  “Hold on,” I said as I gripped her wrist. She grasped the back of my tunic with her fingers, and then with the last of my strength I towed her toward a break in the rocks, hoping the swell of the sea would push us clear before any more damage was done to either of us.

  Although continually battered against the sharp rocks, somehow we managed to get around the other side of the treacherous barrier, where the water was much calmer. The sun had nearly risen by the time we dragged ourselves onto the pebbled beach. We lay on the shore, panting.

  “Can you walk?” I asked as I examined her leg. There were long scrapes on her shin and her ankle was already swollen. “We need to get out of sight.”

  “I don’t think I can stand.”

  “You must,” I said. “We’ve gotten this far, we have to keep going.”

  She sighed, a painful sound that ended on a sob. “There is nowhere to go, Sofi. Nowhere. We have no food, nothing to trade for food, and I may have broken a bone in my leg.” She began to cry, her hands on her bruised and swollen face. “I wish they’d killed us back in the village.”

  Kneeling above her, I yanked her hands away from her face. “No! I won’t let you give up,” I said, my tone brooking no argument. “Let’s get off this beach.”

  Although her expression remained tortured, she allowed me to prop her up. With a groan of frustration mixed with dogged determination, I yanked her to standing and drew her arm about my shoulders, my stomach wrenching each time she hissed in pain from the welts Seno had inflicted on her back.

  With a strength I did not think I even had left in me, I half-dragged, half-carried my cousin across the wide beach and into the trees, where we both collapsed into an area thick wi
th undergrowth and, regardless of the danger that surely surrounded us, passed into beautiful oblivion.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Thirst woke me. My mouth felt as though I’d swallowed some of the sand that cradled my bruised and aching body. Prezi was awake too but had not moved from the place where she’d fallen asleep on her side, her face drawn with pain and despair.

  I shaded my eyes against the high sun glaring down at us, the narrow-trunked palm trees doing little to block its assault. My skin was tight from the salt water, my hair a knotted mess around my body. Sitting up, I attempted to smooth my salt-encrusted curls but could do nothing more than push the matted tangles behind my shoulder.

  “We must find water,” I said with a painful croak. I tried to wet my lips, but the skin was cracked and tender and my parched tongue only aggravated the soreness. “Then we can search out food.”

  Prezi said nothing, her blank eyes taking me in with silent resignation.

  “We can’t just sit here and die, Prez.”

  “I can’t walk,” she said with a voice as flat as her expression. She pointed to her ankle, which had swollen to twice its size, the skin mottled red and purple. “And you certainly cannot carry me. Even if I could move, we have nowhere to go.”

  I stood, swiping at the gritty sand that clung to my skin and tunic, and looked north, where Seno had pointed out the city of Tyre. I could see nothing but trees and thick underbrush and wondered how far south we’d floated. Behind us was only a long curving beach and the crash of waves on the shore. We were stranded, clueless as to where we were or if there was any help to be had.

  Panic began to press upward, but I forced it down, resolving that for as frightened and resigned as Prezi was, I would be equal amounts determined.

  “We have no choice but to move. We are too exposed here. We will have to walk into the city. Perhaps we can find someone who will help us there.”

  “No one will help us, Sofea. We’ll be forced to sell ourselves into slavery to survive.”

  “I won’t give up. I’ll go look for water and food.”

  She shrugged a shoulder and dropped her cheek back to the ground, covering her eyes with her arm and lying so still it was as if she were dead already. I headed back toward the beach, taking note of a distinctive mound of rocks near the edge of the tree line so I could find my way back to her.

  After scavenging for something edible along the edge of the water for what seemed to be hours, I found nothing more than a few clumps of seaweed. Not willing to leave Prezi for too long, I made my way back along the shore, ignoring the sting of seawater against the abrasions on my toes and calves. Looking west, I shaded my eyes against the bright sun and wondered how far away I was from my island and whether I would ever see its white-pebbled shores or explore its secret grottos again. Stretching toward the horizon, the sea curved away from my vision, as if my home had been completely swallowed up by the ocean, the bodies of my family claimed by its greedy depths.

  Kneeling in the surf, I sent a desperate prayer skimming across the water. “What can we do?” I begged. “Prezi will die without help. We have no water, no food. Nothing.” Perhaps my cousin was right and we should have died back at the village. Better a swift death by sword than starving or wasting away with no fresh water to quench our thirst. But what could Posedao do? Would Atemito deign to answer? Or what of the Furies that swept like invisible birds through the air to stir the clouds? Was there even a god who could hear me in this faraway land?

  My only answer was the constant swish of the lapping waves, the rasp of sand under my knees, and the distant cry of a few gulls searching, like me, for something to sustain them along this rocky, inhospitable seashore.

  I breathed in the salt air, inhaling it deep, deep into my lungs as if it could quench my thirst. I grasped the shell necklace that miraculously still hung around my neck, drawing circles with my thumb into its smooth hollow. I had no token of my gods, just this beautiful purple-and-white shell, the only remnant of my home besides Prezi. Then I stood to return to my cousin with only a handful of dried seaweed and not one more answer than I’d carried away with me.

  Low voices drifted from the thick stand of trees where I’d left Prezi. Deep masculine voices that spoke words my ears could not decipher. Had Porote and his men found us? Dropping the seaweed behind me, I ducked low and slithered through the trees, careful to step only in the sand and away from any twigs or stones that might betray me. With my breath locked in my chest, I peered around a large white-flowered bush.

  My cousin still lay where she had when I walked away, her body curled in upon itself, her face as pale as the sand beneath her, and a large man standing over her with his back toward me. Unmoving, Prezi looked up at the hulking stranger like a hopeless, wounded animal. Clamping my lips to keep myself from crying out, I crouched even lower, keeping myself pressed as far into the sweet-smelling bush as possible.

  The prayer I’d tossed out to the gods of the sea and the earth and the air came back to jeer at me. Nothing had heard my supplications but the water and the sky. Prezi and I, the last survivors of our village, would die today.

  I would not let my cousin die alone.

  I darted from my hiding place, slipped around the giant of a man, and threw myself over Prezi. “Leave her alone!” I shouted at him, and to my surprise the man took two steps backward, his hands aloft, as if he were surrendering to me.

  He said a few words, none of which I understood, so I screamed at him again to leave my cousin be.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her.

  “I woke up and they were here.” Although she’d seemed resigned to her fate, her body was shuddering.

  “They?” Dread swirled through my bones as I lifted my head to look around. My heart sank like an anchor stone. Six men stood in a loose circle around us now, faces drawn, all heavily armed. I recognized none of them from the ship, and they looked nothing like the bare-chested, tattooed men who’d snatched us from our home. Nonetheless, they were just as dangerous.

  Another man stepped forward, his hands upraised, and spoke in that strange language. His words lifted as if he were asking me a question. The sea air drifted through his dark brown hair, making it flop into his eyes. He scratched at his shaved chin as he waited for me to answer. He seemed to be the leader of this group.

  “I don’t understand you!” I said to him.

  He took another step closer to us, and I tightened my grip on Prezi.

  “I think they were watching while I was sleeping,” she whispered. “I didn’t even hear them.”

  The hulking man spoke to the dark-haired one, gesturing toward Prezi’s leg. They both frowned, as if somehow concerned at the largely swollen ankle. As if they cared.

  I shook off the notion and yelled again, waving my hands for emphasis. “Leave us alone. I won’t let you hurt her.”

  Again they conversed in that strange tongue, the lilting words grating against my senses as I strained to pick out something, anything I could understand.

  The dark-haired man put his hand on the hilt of his sword, drawing it from a leather scabbard. I could almost feel the remainder of my breath seeping from my body.

  But instead of slashing at us, the man laid the sword in the sand. Then he gestured to the other men who surrounded us. All of them drew swords or daggers and laid them on the ground, then lifted their palms as if displaying that they had no intention of hurting us.

  Confusion rippled through me.

  “What is happening?” Prezi whispered as she pushed her body upward to a sitting position. I kept my arm curved around her shoulder, unwilling to allow them to divide us.

  “I don’t know.”

  Taking the time to slow down his movements, as if to avoid startling us, the dark-haired man knelt down in front of Prezi. A few threads of silver shimmered at his temples; he looked to be similar in age to my father. But instead of the hard glint I’d seen in Seno’s eyes as he drew that whip last night, this
man’s eyes seemed almost . . . kind.

  Baffled, I shrank back, pulling my trembling cousin closer. The dark-haired man gestured toward Prezi’s ankle, saying something again in that language that dipped and swelled in ways I’d never heard. I lifted my chin, surveying his companions, but none of them moved, all seeming deferential to this man as their leader. They stood like statues, weapons at their feet, with eyes displaying something akin to sympathy.

  The hulking one said something, then slowly approached again, and as he did so, he drew a full goatskin bag from his shoulder and held it out to us. Wary, but desperate for water, I snatched it from his grasp and pressed it into my cousin’s hands, insisting she drink first before bringing it to my own lips. The water was lukewarm, as if the giant of a man had been carrying it over his shoulder for hours, but it was wet and soothed my parched throat.

  When I finally sated my thirst, I held the bag to my chest, somewhat loath to return it in case he was like Seno, dangling an offer of help and then turning to snatch it from my grip. But the dark-haired man smiled. A wide, warm smile that displayed grooves in his cheeks that made him seem much younger than the silver in his hair would suggest.

  The man gestured again toward Prezi’s wounded leg, as if asking permission to survey the damage. Although I was terrified of his touching her, I held still as he took my silence for assent and reached out to gently scoop my cousin’s foot in his palm.

  Slowly he lifted her ankle off the sand, tilting his head to survey the swelling. The big one made a comment and shook his head, and then they seemed to have a conversation about the injury.

  The dark-haired man laid Prezi’s foot back on the sand, but even though he was gentle, she sucked in a tortured gasp, and I suddenly felt it necessary to beg these men for not only our lives, but also to help my cousin.

  “Please,” I said. “We have nothing to give you. And I know you don’t even understand us, but we have nowhere to go and I can’t help her. Please. I’ll do anything.” The thought struck me hard in the gut—but yes, I would do anything if it meant Prezi was safe.